


Smile Like You Mean It

by awenswords



Series: Marvel One-Shots [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brainwashing, F/M, Hydra, Implied BuckyNat, Natasha has emotions, One-Shot, Steve is protective, clint barton plays scrabble, deprogramming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 12:38:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awenswords/pseuds/awenswords
Summary: ///"You could at least recognize me," she says, trying for a flat, half-hopeful tone that would invite him to speak to her, but instead a bitter infliction seeps past her mask.He stays silent, eyes downcast and lips pursed, eyes shadowed and face bruised. He's ashamed and frowning (but she trained him to disguise his emotions, even if he doesn't know it). So she can see the sadness and the fear that gnaws at him.///Natasha watches as Bucky struggles against his programming and tries to remember her.





	Smile Like You Mean It

Natalia Romanova learned not to cry when she was a just child. She learned how to kill before she could read in English, although she could speak it and imitate over one-hundred accents. She knew how to read someone's life in their face, their clothing, the way they walked, and their eyes, before she had ever said what she wanted to be when she grew up.

She grew up before she had a concept of adulthood, much less her own future beyond bare walls and cots, military training and infirmaries and blood.

So when her handlers told her to crush a man's windpipe, she did (she was fourteen, it was not her first kill, not by a long shot). When she slept on her cot that night, she did not dream, she did not cry because she had been trained not to cry.

When she slit a woman's throat, she calmly washed the blood off of her hands, washed her uniform, bandaged her knuckles - bandages, a reward for a task well done. 

She knows every way to smile. She can grin like a shark, threatening and cold. She can fake a smile with her eyes and the warmth in her tone. She tilt her voice and flash a seductive smirk. She can laugh hollowly, she can smile sadly like she's on her deathbed.

She can cry like she's laughing, cry like she's sad, cry like she's trying not to cry.

Her face was always a moldable mask, no unwanted expression slipping past it.

"You could at least recognize me," she says, trying for a flat, half-hopeful tone that would invite him to speak to her, but instead a bitter infliction seeps past her mask.

He stays silent, eyes downcast and lips pursed, eyes shadowed and face bruised. He's ashamed and frowning (but she trained him to disguise his emotions, even if he doesn't know it). So she can see the sadness and the fear that gnaws at him.

"You keep saying that," he murmurs, not meeting her eyes. His gaze flickers up for a moment then returns to his metal hand. He wishes that he could say who she is. 

"Do you two know each other," Steve asks, pressing his palms against the stainless steel table, leaving an oily streak.

This is supposed to be a nice, bonding breakfast. But Tony is sleeping in the corner and Clint is on his fifth cup of coffee, playing scrabble with himself. Natasha idly wonders who is winning. Peter is doing homework and texting under the table.

"Yes," Natalia says, at the same moment that Barnes says "No." Goddamnit.

"All I know," he says slowly, carefully, handpicking every syllable, "Is your name is Natalia."

Steve shakes his head, "No, she's Natasha."

Natalia uses her shark-smile, "Barnes is correct, actually."

Clint throws a scrabble piece at her, "Nat. Tasha. Natalia. Natasha. Nancy. Red. Mary. Take your pick."

Barnes flinches, cowering, as a second scrabble piece flies past his head. Something twists Natasha's heart, and Steve movies protectively closer to Barnes, murmuring something under his breath to the quieter man.

Natasha wants to punch through the bulletproof windows. She wants to take a machine gun to the National Archives and burn down the history of the world, just like they burned down Barnes's history. She wants to spill blood over the Magna Carta and topple Napoleon's tomb. Take that, fuckers, why don't we take from you what you took from us.

Because Natasha's memories were once taken, too.

She got them back. Nothing can escape her for very long. Not even the Winter Soldier, apparently.

"How do you know Bucky?" Steve asks, jealousy twitching across his face. 

Natasha smiles, she's not sure what type of smile it is (it rose of its own volition), but it's probably a sad one. "A long time ago, Barnes and I were..acquaintances." (But we were more than that).

Barnes peers at her through greasy hair. There are stitches on his forehead and a band-aid on his nose. It's a Captian America band-aid, because that's what Clint had. Poetic. Or sad?

Clint is on his sixth cup of coffee. He's spelled out four words (longing, homecoming, nine, benign).

It's exposure therapy -

Barnes is glaring at the words like they're poison

\- Barnes doesn't know that.

Clint looks guilty. It's hidden behind a casual facade, a mug of coffee in his hand, an assortment of letters on his knee. He has his own set of battle wounds - eye swollen and purple, he winces when his reading glasses press against it, scratches adorning his arm in a mess of angry lines.

Of course Clint is guilty. He can't forget what it was like to watch Natasha struggle through her own deprogramming.

Nat shoots him a biting look, and he shrugs - he's too sympathetic for his own good.

Barnes' eyes start to glaze over, drawing Natasha's attention back to him. He's coasting through waves of vertigo, body tilting dangerously to the side. He holds himself like a much older man, moving with the slowness of brittle bones and shuffling steps. His bones creak as he stands up, moving mechanically to the immaculately polished kitchen countertop. Steve rises with him, and Natasha stills, hand reaching for a gun at her hip.

He's reaching for a knife, fingers trembling, arm shaking. There's a whisper of a word on his tongue, an exhalation of breath - soft, quiet, no. Natasha knows this moment all too well - within the broken husk of a man that is the Winter Soldier, Bucky is pressing back. Synapses firing in a new pattern, long-buried thoughts, words, images, pushing their way through the thick fog of the Soldier's muddy mind.

His hand falls, fingers still twitching. Steve lets out a relieved breath, and Natasha relaxes only slightly.

Natasha puts up her warm smile, forces some light into her eyes. Or maybe the smile is released, let loose, perhaps the relief dappling her features is genuine.

Maybe there is a change for Bucky to resurface after all.


End file.
